* * * *
Faith removed her shawl, folded it, and draped it over the back of the rocking chair. “The master’s son is home,” she said.
Though Lilith was at the hearth tending the stew and Daniel was off in the shadows milking the goat, she sensed him stiffen.
She said nothing; she didn’t even look at her mother. She kept her head down and stirred their supper as she contemplated how she’d known this for days, somewhere inside, the feeling that he was coming closer.
“Greyson tells me he won’t be going back for a while,” Faith added, into the sudden, tense silence. “Due to his father’s health.”
Lilith tried hard to dampen the telltale thrill racing through her blood. Carefully, she took the caldron from its hook and set it on the table, turning to fetch bowls and spoons. Daniel’s gaze, and his thoughts, pummeled her as he walked across the room, carrying a bucket of milk, which he added to the table.
“He has been worse,” Lilith said tonelessly. She gestured; Faith and Daniel sat down and she joined them, ladling stew into bowls. “Sometimes I have to repeat what I’ve read three or four times because of his coughing.”
“I wonder why John Gordon hired such a sick old man to oversee this place,” Faith said. “There must be a debt of some kind. Does Master Kenneth ever bring him up?”
Lilith shook her head. “Only in passing.” She remembered Aodhàn, the thin, black-headed, intense boy. She knew from his father that he’d left Eton and was now at Oxford. She’d hardly seen him during the last six years. His most recent visit had been over a year ago. When he had been here, he’d kept his distance. Now, hearing he was home, and apparently to stay, her mind leaped with old images and memories. I’m going to marry you, Lilith.
She swallowed a mouthful of stew and kept a neutral expression. Had he forgotten that vow, made when he was a boy? What did he look like now? Had he changed?
“Did ye hear me, girl?”
“Wh-what?”
“I said you’re to come with me tomorrow, and help with the cooking. They’re expecting guests from the mainland.”
Lilith nodded. She glanced at Daniel. He was frowning, staring narrowly at her throat. She realized she’d pulled the ring he’d given her out from beneath her blouse, and was fingering it. Quickly, she put it back where it belonged. “Aye,” she said, and turned the subject to what they would be preparing, and for how many.
* * * *
The secret passageway was tighter than Lilith remembered. There was so much dust she had to stifle three sneezes before she reached Aodhàn’s bedroom.
She took her time, careful to make no sound as she neared the lattice-covered opening in his wall. If he discovered her this time, she would die of embarrassment, not to mention the wrath she might bring down on herself, her mother, and Daniel. She was no longer a wean, who could be forgiven for exploring the nooks and crannies of a big house. She’d argued with herself about it all day as she’d gone about the duties of peeling potatoes, slicing leeks, and basting the meat, every now and then glancing at the hallway where the pantries were situated. No one had ever mentioned finding the passageway. She suspected its location, on the floor, underneath a shelf, back in a dusty dark corner, effectively kept it secret.
The perfect moment came when Faith and Sarah Lamont went out to the kailyard in search of pretty garnishes. Lilith slipped into the passage, hoping it would be as easy to get back into the kitchen when she’d finished spying on the master’s son. It was much harder to squeeze beneath the shelf than it had been six years ago.
She peered down into the room from her hiding place. There he lay, on the bed, dressed in dark trousers and a spotless white shirt, open at the neck. His long, elegant fingers gripped the edges of an open book. He frowned as he read and she saw his jaw clench, a jaw shadowed with stubble, as though he hadn’t shaved in a day or so.
It struck her hard as he turned a page. The boy who had flirted with her was gone. The figure on the bed was in every way a man.
Seeing the changes, some subtle, others palpable, made her wonder about her own. Would she look different to him now? Would he notice? Did he even remember her?
A startled eek emerged from her throat when he said, “It’s dirty and damp in there. Come out.” He turned another page then patted the bed beside him.
She lay there, staring, wishing she knew a way to disintegrate into dust motes.
“Come, Lilith,” he said, turning his face toward the grate. One brow lifted and he sent her a slight, challenging smile. “Or are you afraid?”
Gritting her teeth, she put her fingers through the holes in the latticework and pushed it off the wall, letting it clatter to the floor. She was caught, so she may as well accept it. And no one could call her afraid with impunity.
He got up and came over to the wall, holding out his hand to help her into the room.
She gripped his hand and dropped out of the hole, stumbling a little when her shoe struck the painting that was propped against the wall. She looked up, and saw the nail in the wall above the hole. Ah, so he’d removed the painting from its hanger. Why? Because he’d hoped she might come through the passageway?
He put his other hand on her waist and there it remained as he stared at her, every bit as intensely as he had when he was thirteen. She felt her cheeks burn, partly because she’d been caught spying on him, and partly because he was making her feel like her hair had come undone or her skirt was up around her knees.
He laughed. His grip on her waist tightened and he waltzed her around the room, humming. “Every sound you make in that passageway is concentrated by the way it’s shaped,” he said. “Sounds resonate through the grate— even breathing. No matter how quiet you try to be, I’ll always know you’re there.”
She looked away from his laughing eyes and wished she could dunk her head in ice water. The book he’d been reading lay open on the bed; it drew a second glance from her, because, while some of the letters looked familiar, others did not. Some resembled triangles, there was a sideways placed M, one looked like a horseshoe, and there was an O with an I slicing vertically through it. “What is that?” she asked, refusing to take another step.
“Sappho,” he said. Seeing her confusion, he added, “A Greek poet.”
“You read Greek.” She turned a wide gaze back to his face. Somehow, this fact made her realize, as his fine clothing and surroundings never had, just how removed he truly was from her.
“You’ve grown up.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it.
Her heart raced. So have you, she managed to keep herself from saying. She yanked her hand free and it went, instinctively, to Daniel’s ring on the thong around her neck.
Aodhàn frowned. He pried her hand off the ring and when he saw what it was, scowled. “What is this?” His gaze lifted to hers. “Daniel’s? I told you not to get any ideas about him.” A tic pulsed under his eye. His nostrils flared and whitened.
“Who are you to tell me what to do? I’ve known Daniel my whole life. You’re nobody to us. Nobody! You’ll get bored here and move to Edinburgh, or London. You don’t fool me.”
He pulled on the thong, forcing her closer. She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t break it,” she said, in warning.
He was so close now, staring into her eyes, she almost felt consumed. His gaze was like a predator’s, a lion’s. There was tense silence, before he released the thong and stepped back. He smiled and bowed. “Grown up in more ways than one,” he said, glancing over her figure. “A formidable woman.”
She heard the respect in his voice and felt she had won a small battle. Still, she had been caught spying on him, which was mortifying. That fact tempered her victory. “Mam will be looking for me. I’m supposed to be helping them cook your dinner.”
“Then why leave your work and come through the passage?” he asked softly, though the smile playing about his mouth told her clearly he knew why.
He came close again, putting his hands on her shoulders, bac
king her against the wall. She felt the chill of the passageway waft against the back of her neck. His proximity made her realize how much taller he was, before he bent. His eyes were on her mouth, and his hands gripped her collar; she wondered if he meant to rip it.
“No,” she whispered fiercely, not sure if she spoke to him or herself, for her heart was hammering, and she suspected it wasn’t from fear.
He stopped, his lips almost touching hers. She felt the heat of him, the warmth of his breath, his knuckles against her throat. He moved a little so he could press his nose in her hair above her ear. “I’ve missed the scent of you,” he said, which was odd. She knew she smelled of dust and cooking food.
Then he brought his mouth back, next to hers. “I will never force you. I don’t have to. You’ll come to me.”
“No I won’t,” she replied, giving every effort to speaking with conviction. “Never.”
With the quickest, lightest kiss against the corner of her mouth he retreated, just enough to look down into her eyes. Smiling, lifting a hand, he stroked her cheek with his knuckles then turned and left the room.
She exhaled, unclenched her hands, and tried to dispel the heat and elevated heartbeat, the betraying response she felt everywhere, his Aye, you will, echoing in her mind.
X.
“Master Aodhàn is taking his father to Mingulay,” Faith said over breakfast. “Something about the air. We’re to go along and keep house.” She nodded at Lilith. “Sarah Lamont is going as well, to do the cooking.”
“What?” Daniel shouted. “No!”
Faith, in her inimitable way, leveled him with a stare. “And who are you to say what I do, and my daughter? I work for Kenneth Mackinnon. If I’m told to go to Mingulay to keep his house, that’s what I’ll be doing. I don’t have the luxury of refusing, if I want to eat.”
Swallowing, lowering his voice, he said, “Lilith isn’t needed. Surely you know why he wants her there.”
Faith didn’t reply for a moment, nor did her expression betray shock or denial. “Lilith has worked at Bishop House at my side for the last six years, and no harm has come to her. Kenneth Mackinnon likes her to read to him. He says her voice is soothing. I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’ll be there to watch over her.”
“I’ll go along as well,” he said quickly.
She scoffed. “They’re no’ bringing horses. You aren’t needed.” Taking a last sip of tea, she rose from the table. “You’ve lived with us a long time, and maybe you think that gives you a say, but it doesn’t. I don’t answer to you, Daniel Carson.”
Lilith watched Daniel’s hands clench as well as his jaw, but he said nothing. He turned his gaze from Faith to Lilith. She smiled at him reassuringly, and unobtrusively caressed the ring he’d given her.
Aodhàn had only been home five days, and already had thrown their usually uneventful lives into chaos.
The next morning, Daniel found Lilith in their usual spot, the hills along the east coast. He approached her and took her hand.
“I can’t let you go,” he said. “I know, and you do as well, why Aodhàn Mackinnon is taking you along. Men of privilege think they can do anything they want, no matter what harm it causes others. If you go, Lilith, everyone will say he’s had you, whether it’s true or not.”
“Not with my mother there, and Sarah Lamont. Kenneth Mackinnon will be there as well, and he doesn’t want his son trifling with the servants. Mam is right— we have no choice, if we want to keep our employment. I, for one, enjoy having enough food to eat, and the means to purchase material for a new apron now and then.”
He seized her, pulled her against him. “Can I trust you? You’re not like other girls. You do what you want, what moves your wild heart.”
She put her arms around his neck. “My wild heart wants only you,” she said, and when he tried to look away with an angry shrug, she brought his gaze back to hers. “Only you, Daniel.”
He pressed his face against her neck then, in that way he had when his emotion was too strong to contain.
She stroked his hair. “Folk would gossip just the same if I stayed here alone with you. More in fact, because there wouldn’t be anyone to say differently. I’ll go and do this, and when we come back, I want us to marry. I’ve been thinking— I’m ready to go to Canada. We’ll go, and find a better life. We’ll leave this place and never think of it again.”
He kissed her, and held her tightly. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you, Daniel.”
The next day, the two women left him standing on the pier, and went with Aodhàn Mackinnon and his father to Mingulay.
* * * *
Aodhàn assisted Lilith out of the dinghy and onto dry land, but he gave the same impersonal assistance to her mother and to Sarah. He steadied the boat while Euan Kilgore carried his father out then he was off, helping with the unloading of luggage.
The rest of the day was spent setting up the one house big enough and proper enough to accommodate them. Built of grey granite, it sat on the hill above the only village on Mingulay, looking down upon it and the riotous sea beyond. It had been abandoned at some point in time, and was now owned by the Catholic Church. Aodhàn had rented it for a month.
Lilith fell into bed exhausted after a day of cleaning, polishing, lugging kitchen supplies, cooking, and attending Kenneth Mackinnon, who suffered a severe coughing fit shortly after arriving at the house. No one had told her she was to be his nurse as well as his companion on this sabbatical.
Sarah’s snoring, and a mind that refused to stop reviewing the day, kept her awake. She stared out the narrow window at a single twinkling star, and compared Aodhàn to Daniel.
With Daniel, her heart would always be safe. Daniel would die to protect her. And, now that she’d lived seventeen years and had seen something of folk and what drove them, she knew he was right about Aodhàn. The factor’s son, trapped on an obscure Hebridean isle with his invalid father, simply wanted to lessen the tedious march of time with a female, and Lilith was handy. If she succumbed to his charm, he would take what he wanted then he would disappear or, more likely, make her disappear.
Daniel was warm, comforting. He made her feel easy, at peace. She could picture a long future with him. They were from the same walk of life, and they fit each other seamlessly. Daniel would pledge himself to her, and no other, for as long as they lived.
Aodhàn might be drawn to her for whatever reason, but their opposite stations formed an impenetrable wall between them. He’d always had servants to leap to his every desire. He’d never had to worry about where his next meal was coming from, or if he would have a home to live in.
I will not be one of those who leap to serve him, she thought. She would perform whatever tasks were required of her, and keep to the background. It shouldn’t be that hard to avoid Aodhàn. She would make certain she always had someone around her— her mother, Sarah, or even Kenneth Mackinnon. The old man was scrupulously conventional.
It would be better if she didn’t have this almost overwhelming physical attraction that ignited whenever Aodhàn came within eyesight. But it didn’t matter. She was made of strong enough stuff to hold him off.
She quietly opened the drawer in the nightstand and brought out the necklace Aodhàn had given her so long ago. It seemed to capture the faint starlight from the window, and quickly warmed against her skin. As much as she secretly treasured it, she was going to marry Daniel when they returned to Barra.
She had to give the necklace back. After that, she would take every measure to avoid Aodhàn Mackinnon.
Mingulay
* * * *
April, 1845
XI.
Euan Kilgore wheeled Kenneth Mackinnon up the hill behind their cottage and over to Bual na Creige, the blackest, highest, and most awe-inspiring of Mingulay’s western cliffs, a savage sharp precipice that plunged straight down, hundreds upon hundreds of feet, to an unruly, unforgiving ocean.
Lilith sat on a blanket beside Kenn
eth’s Bath chair, reading from A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. The air was redolent with the stench of bird waste, and ringing with the shrill cries of thousands of seabirds. Almost lost beneath the noise came the bleating of new baby lambs, for April was lambing time on Mingulay.
Euan went off to explore the sheer vertical edge, leaving Lilith and Kenneth alone.
“Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him,” Lilith read.
“I know what you’re up to,” Kenneth said abruptly, leveling her with a cold stare and pounding his fist on his armrest. “You think you can trick my son into marriage. I won’t allow it, do you understand?” He started coughing; Lilith jumped up and held a handkerchief to his mouth, but he pushed her away and took the cloth from her, swiping at his lips. “I forbid it, do you hear me?”
“I’m not doing that,” she said, but he waved, cutting her off, and shook his index finger in her face.
“I won’t let you ruin my son,” he said, his jaw clenching repeatedly.
“I don’t want your son,” she shouted. “I’m already promised. I’m marrying Daniel, your groom.”
He was taken aback, and blinked. “But Aodhàn said….” He shut his mouth, and squinted at her. “You’re marrying Daniel?”
“Here’s his ring.” She pulled it out from under her collar.
He stared at it. “Make sure you do, and I’ll provide a handsome dowry.”
“I don’t want your bribes!”
“But you’ll have the dowry, if you marry Daniel when we return. You know you’ll need it, so don’t be so quick to reject my offer. Daniel has told me he intends to move to Canada. I’ll fund your voyage, and give you enough to support you for months— a year— when you get there.”
She wanted to tell him to choke on his money, but she stopped herself, knowing very well how much something like that would help.
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